IIT Memories (Part 1/5): Two Decades On

As I was preparing for the “My Story” talk as part of the IIT-B Alumni Association’s “Kal, Aaj aur Kal” event in Bangalore on Saturday, a lot of memories came back about my four years from IIT (1984-88). While I could not describe many of these since the talk became a panel conversation, I thought I should share some of that here.

My year of graduation – 1988 – neatly bisects my life so far into two (about 21 years on either side). For me, IIT was a transformational experience. It would be fair to say that a lot of what I learnt in life, I learnt in IIT. And most of what I learnt in IIT, I learnt outside the classroom!

Now, more than decades after graduation, I can perhaps look back at those four years and see my life since graduation through the prism of those four years. Over the rest of this week, I will describe four themes which permeated through IIT and my life since then.

Before that, to put my life in context, here is a chronological outline of the past 20 years:

2001-2005: Back to NetCore, a company I had founded in 1998. Tried multiple ideas beyond the mailing software business that we had – blogs search engine, enterprise software, thin client-thick server software, digital dashboard, etc. No success in these new areas.

2006-now: Focused on mobile data services as the new area, and launched MyToday (SMS subscriptions and portal), even as Mailing business continued its growth.